JCI/Siemens? Help

[joken]

I need some opinions please. I'm the HVAC guy at a Hospital. The bldg was originally JCI pneumatics and in 98 we went to Metasys. Metasys and the JCI equipment has been bullet proof. I like it and have a good relationship with their Tech. We are doing a major expansion and infrastructure upgrade and the mechanical engineer and my supervisor are talking Siemens. I think it's a bad move. In my opinion it simply creates an opportunity to fail. My parts failure rate since 1998 has been nearly zero and we have had no system down time caused by JCI. If I end up with two vendors systems joined togeather, will we have to pay them both when we encounter problems? I can almost hear the Seimens guy saying the problem is with the JCI stuff.. Comments please. Ken in Oregon Anyone looking for work?

[dingman]

Personally, I don't think it's ever a good idea to take a large facility with a good control system and then try to add\merge in another system. I work for Siemens and I like the product. But I also don't have anything against JCI and in your circumstance, I can't see any good coming of putting Siemens in. I don't know much about JCI but I assume it's the same class of product and is similar in function.
Now, if there's functionality that you're missing or lack of support, that's another issue.

But, if it's just Miller beer vs. Busch beer, and you're used to Miller, Busch is only going to give you diarrhea.

[dlynchindy]

Get ready for BACnet. All control systems will be equal.

[shifferbrains]

Although I don't work for Siemens I do work as a DDC Tech on a large university campus with over 250 Siemens BLN cabinets and more being installed all the time. Our choice years ago was to single source our HVAC controls to who at the time was MCC Powers (Siemens). We do have a few JCI controllers on small standalone jobs and they seem to work as specified with a minimum of problems. The Siemens product line are good and reliable with a very flexible programming language. But I agree with DINGMAN. If you already have a large investment in JCI then you should stick with them for best system continuity.

[mark schofield]

Given that both systems are just about as good, what are your supervisors reasons for the addition of the new controls system? Price, function, relative working for Siemens, ect? Perhaps if some of the pros here knew the reasons, they could help in your arguments. The school system I just retired from had one building with JCI and then an addition which was controlled by Automated Logic. It worked fine but still two different systems. The specs said "comparable to" so in our case AL was installed by the low bidder. Perhaps that's the case with your facility.

[contrlguy]

today, all controls systems are nearly equal in terms of their functionality. so, what you really want to focus on is product that can't lock you up. Seimens and JCI branch are the masters of the lock-um and loot-um strategy.

use products that are open protocol and open procurement.